OBIT: William NEELY, 1911, Morrell, Blair County, PA

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Powder Works Go; Four Dead
Intense Heat Thought to Have Caused Explosion
Disaster at Morrell, Pa.
Two of the Victims were Blown to Fragments; Parts of Their Bodies Being 
Found Later in Wide Separated Pieces
Window Glass Shattered in Places Five Miles from Scene 
Hollidaysburg, Pa., July 6

  Intense heat caused an explosion at the Standard Powder Works at 
Morrell station on the Pittsburg branch of the PRR and resulted in the 
deaths of four employees, the injury of another man and the destruction 
of the works. Two of the men were blown to pieces.
  The Dead:
  Jesse Helsel, forty years old, of Hollidaysburg.
  Ira Dodson, twenty-one years old, of Hollidaysburg, a bridegroom of 
one month.
  David McIntyre, twenty-two years old, of Morrell.
  William Neely of Morrell, burned about the body; died in Altoona 
hospital.
  W. H. Garner, PRR agent at Morrell, had his hands burned badly.
  Dodson and McIntyre were blown to fragments, their arms, legs and 
bodies being found in the branches of trees hundreds of feet away.  The 
explosion shattered window panes and destroyed property within a range 
of five miles of the scene.
  The origin of the explosion is not known as the four men who could 
tell the story are dead.  The three men who were killed outright had a 
truck load of finished powder, moving it from the mills to the storage 
house when the explosion occurred.  The explosion in one mill caused a 
fire to start in four other mills. The twenty five employees were 
unable to stay the flames as their work clothing was impregnated with 
powder.  The mountain side on which the works are situated became a 
sheet of flames and the conflagration was subdued only after volunteer 
firemen arrived from other towns.

Cambria Freeman, Ebensburg, Pa., Volume 45, Number 27, Friday, July 7, 
1911